Our Team

Jeffrey Lu

Jeff is passionate about building companies using technology and science for impact. He has fifteen years of business, executive management, and entrepreneurial experience, creating sustainable businesses, shareholder value and liquidity events.
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In addition to Engine, Jeff has played founding and leadership roles in several biotechnology and technology companies. This includes Enleofen Bio (developing therapeutics targeting IL-11 for fibrosis; preclinical pipeline acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim for >$1 billion), PairX Bio (venture-backed cancer immunotherapy company), and AAE (travel technology company built to >$100 million revenue and profitability within three years of inception; acquired by Expedia Inc in transactions valuing AAE at ~$300 million), among others.
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Jeff began his career as a management consultant at Bain & Company. Subsequently he joined AirAsia as Head of Strategy and Group Head of Commercial Strategy, leading teams covering strategy, commercial strategy, data analytics, and digital marketing. He played a principal role in establishing several new joint ventures and businesses for the group.

Jeff has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He received his BA summa cum laude from University of Pennsylvania.

David Epstein PhD

Yaron Turpaz PhD

Yaron joined Engine in 2018 and is a proven research and development informatics, data science and technology leader in the biotech and pharma space with hands-on experience using cloud-based high-throughput computational, machine learning, AI and genomics platforms for drug discovery and development applications in precision medicine.
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Previously, he held senior R&D informatics roles at Human Longevity Inc (Chief Information Officer), AstraZeneca (VP R&D IT), Eli Lilly (Director), and Affymetrix in California, Boston, and Singapore. He has led global teams of up to 300 headcount and has worked across many therapeutic areas including oncology, neuroscience, infectious diseases, diabetes, and cardiovascular. He also has a role at Global Gene Corp as Chief Data and Technology Officer.

Yaron has a BS in Biology from Tel Aviv University, a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. He also held an adjunct assistant professor at the Centre for Quantitative Medicine of Duke-National University of Singapore, Graduate Medical School.

Taylor Brew PhD

Taylor joined Engine in 2018 and has nearly fifteen years of experience in preclinical drug discovery and development, in the therapeutic areas of oncology, pain, inflammation and GI/liver therapeutics. She is an accomplished project leader of multiple drug discovery teams and has led strategic evaluations of pipeline programs. She brings many years of leadership in the development of biological assays.

Prior to joining Engine, Taylor was Director of Research Biology at Relypsa where she led the cross-functional team that prioritized the research pipeline for Relypsa’s gut-restricted polymer platform. She was the lead of the project team that developed multiple candidate ammonia binding polymers directed towards the treatment of Hepatic Encephalopathy. As the functional leader of the research biology group, she was also responsible for in vitro and in vivo biology support for Relypsa’s programs in research and development. Previously, Taylor was a Senior Scientist in Research Biology at Nektar Therapeutics, where she led several discovery stage projects including a discovery oncology program that identified multiple novel applications for polymer modified oncology drugs.

She earned her B.S. in Chemistry (cum laude) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology from Cornell University, and she performed her postdoctoral studies at the University of California at Berkeley.

Michael Winther, PhD

Michael joined Engine in 2019 with over thirty years of experience in research and drug discovery. Previously he was Associate Director at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) after moving to Singapore in 2014 to take on the challenge of managing Singapore’s national pharmacogenomics programme SAPhIRE. He was also responsible for business development and management of intellectual property at GIS.

Prior to moving to Singapore he had a long career working in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry in Canada and the UK, as Senior Director of Drug Discovery at Xenon Pharmaceuticals in Vancouver and as President of QuantaNova Canada in Nova Scotia. His work resulted in several novel drug targets leading to compounds tested in clinical studies.

Michael graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, obtained a PhD from the University of Stirling, Scotland and conducted postdoctoral training at the University of Essex. His work has spanned diverse areas including vaccine, biological products, lipids, anti-sense oligonucleotides and small molecule drug discovery.

Darin Baur JD

Darin has two decades of experience in corporate finance and transactions in U.S.A. and Asia. He started his career as a corporate attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Chicago. Following that, he became an investment banker with Salomon Smith Barney / Citigroup, both in Chicago and in Hong Kong. Darin also worked as a senior investment banker (Managing Director) at HSBC and Canaccord Genuity in Hong Kong. Darin has advised on many capital raising transactions, both public and private, in his career, as well as cross-border and U.S. domestic mergers and acquisitions. This includes listing companies on a number of international exchanges.

Darin obtained a B.A. in Economics and Management, summa cum laude, from Albion College, in Albion, Michigan, U.S.A., and a Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from the Harvard University Law School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Jeffrey Lu

Jeff is passionate about building companies using technology and science for impact. He has fifteen years of business, executive management, and entrepreneurial experience, creating sustainable businesses, shareholder value and liquidity events.
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In addition to Engine, Jeff has played founding and leadership roles in several biotechnology and technology companies. This includes Enleofen Bio (developing therapeutics targeting IL-11 for fibrosis; preclinical pipeline acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim for >$1 billion), PairX Bio (venture-backed cancer immunotherapy company), and AAE (travel technology company built to >$100 million revenue and profitability within three years of inception; acquired by Expedia Inc in transactions valuing AAE at ~$300 million), among others.
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Jeff began his career as a management consultant at Bain & Company. Subsequently he joined AirAsia as Head of Strategy and Group Head of Commercial Strategy, leading teams covering strategy, commercial strategy, data analytics, and digital marketing. He played a principal role in establishing several new joint ventures and businesses for the group.

Jeff has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He received his BA summa cum laude from University of Pennsylvania.

Timothy Lu MD PhD

Tim developed key elements of Engine Bio’s technology platforms and has deep expertise in synthetic and systems biology, genetic interactions mapping, and computer science/engineering.

Tim is an Associate Professor leading the Synthetic Biology Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. Tim graduated with his SB and MEng from MIT, and his MD/PhD from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. He is a core member of the MIT Synthetic Biology Center and a co-founder of multiple biotechnology companies innovating new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies for human health, including Sample6, Senti Biosciences, Synlogic, Eligo Biosciences, BiomX, and Engine Biosciences.  He currently serves as CEO of Senti Biosciences.

Tim’s research at MIT focuses on engineering platforms for computing and memory in living cells and applying these to create adaptive medicines as next-generation cell and gene therapies for important human diseases. His work also includes developing novel technology platforms to interrogate and correct diseased cell states. He is a recipient of the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award, the Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award, the NIH New Innovator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award, among others.

Amy Schulman JD

Amy is a managing partner of Polaris Partners in the New York office and focuses on investments in healthcare companies.

She currently serves as executive chair of SQZ Biotech, as well as Lyndra Therapeutics, where she was co-founder and the company’s initial CEO. She also represents Polaris as a director of Kallyope, Volastra, Thirty Madison and ByHeart. Amy joined Polaris in 2014, at which time she assumed the role of CEO of Arsia Therapeutics, a Polaris-backed company later acquired by Eagle Pharmaceuticals. She also manages the Polaris Innovation Fund which was formed in 2017.
Prior to joining Polaris, Schulman was the general counsel of Pfizer, president of Pfizer Nutrition, and was instrumental in its sale to Nestle for $11.85 billion in 2012. Soon after, Schulman became the president of Pfizer Consumer Healthcare.

Schulman has received numerous awards including 2019 PharmaVoice 100, Xconomy’s 2017 Newcomer Award, Scientific American’s 2015 Worldview 100 List, Fierce Biotech’s 2014 Top 15 Women in Biotech, and Fortune Magazine’s 2013 50 Most Powerful Women in Business. She is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and serves on the Board of Directors of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY) and Mount Sinai Hospital. She is also a member of Singapore’s Health and Biomedical Sciences International Advisory Council.

She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wesleyan University with a joint degree in philosophy and english and earned her J.D. from Yale Law School.

Wen Qi Ho PhD

Wen Qi focuses on investing in and building global healthcare companies from Singapore. Prior to joining ClavystBio, she headed up the Singapore investments and operations for Lightstone Ventures, where she played a major role in establishing the firm’s presence in Singapore. Wen Qi evaluated new investment opportunities in the biopharmaceutical and medical device sectors, and was actively involved in venture-building portfolio companies in Singapore such as Medisix Therapeutics, Allay Therapeutics and Ligature Therapeutics.

Wen Qi is an advocate for early career researcher participation in biotech entrepreneurship, and serves on advisory and grant review panels with leading institutions in Singapore. She also serves on boards of ClavystBio’s portfolio companies.

Wen Qi attained her PhD in Immunology at Stanford University, and BSc in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Johns Hopkins University.

Leon Chen PhD

Leon is Founding Partner and CEO of 6 Dimensions Capital, a leading biotech venture capital firm with over $1.5 billion in AUM. Leon has over 20 years of experience in the life sciences industry in China and the U.S. as a venture capitalist, senior management executive, entrepreneur, and scientific inventor. He is a member of the Expert Review Panel for the Chinese Central Government HR’s 1000 Talent Project, and an adviser to BioBAY of Suzhou Industry Park.

As a venture capital investor, his past affiliations include Fidelity Growth Partners-Asia (Partner) and BioVeda China (Managing Partner). Representative Investments include CITIC Pharmaceutical (Board Director, Acting CFO), Cathay Industrial Biotechnology (Board Director), Hile Biopharma (Board Director), Hua Medicine (Shanghai) (Board Director), Innovent Biologics Ltd (Chairman), Adagene (Board Director) and MDDF (Board Director).

As a management consultant, his past affiliations include McKinsey & Company (Brussels), Ernst & Young (Palo Alto) and Life Science Strategic Consulting (Managing Partner, San Francisco Bay Area). As a Ph.D. scientist, he worked with Schering Plough (New Jersey), and is a key member of the discovery team of Zytia / Vytorin – a multi-billion drug. Leon was a Post-Doc at MIT and received his Ph.D. (with top honors) from the University of Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve and his B.S. from Peking University. Leon holds 6 issued US Patents, and is co-author of the 14th and 15th Ernst & Young Biotechnology Annual Report.

Ali Farahanchi PhD

Ali is Managing Director at Camford Capital, an early-stage tech and life science fund in Silicon Valley. With more than $650M assets under management and 100+ companies in its portfolio, Camford invests in variety of areas in healthcare including therapeutics, diagnostics and tools, and digital health, with strong emphasis on novel mechanisms and data-driven platforms. Previously Ali worked in research and in consulting roles in semiconductor and healthcare industries. He obtained graduate degrees in engineering and management from MIT and University of Chicago.

Nirdesh Gupta PhD

Nirdesh K. Gupta, PhD, is Managing Director of Cedars-Sinai Technology Ventures and the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator. Dr. Gupta also leads and provides key operations leadership to Business Units and Commercial Enterprises at Cedars-Sinai such as 3rd Street Technologies, The Medically Associated Science and Technology (MAST) & Cedars-Sinai Biomanufacturing Center (CBC). Dr. Gupta directed CSTV’s Seed Fund and Equity investments and have $275M+ equity under management representing over 20 companies, with multiple significant financial exits.

Dr. Gupta works closely with, and mentors, world-class scientists and entrepreneurs to build companies to develop innovative products and platforms that address critical healthcare needs. Dr. Gupta and his team support company creation, equity and IP portfolio management, preclinical and clinical development of breakthrough technologies, business development, licensing & industry alliances including pilot programs and co-development partnerships with startups and major industry players. Dr. Gupta’s leadership has led to multiple successful partnerships with industry, and he has directly played an instrumental role in company co-creation of several Cedars-Sinai spinoffs notably Prometheus Biosciences, Gemelli Biotech, and Gravidas Diagnostics.

Dr. Gupta was a nominated member of the Business Advisory Council of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and has served as member of their Innovation and Competitiveness Task Force. He holds a bachelor’s and doctorate degrees in pharmaceutical sciences.

Alexandra Cantley PhD

Alexandra joined Polaris in 2019 and serves as a partner in the New York office. She is primarily focused on early stage biotech and healthcare investments.

She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Auron Therapeutics, BeMeHealth, Crossbow Therapeutics, EpiBiologics, Podimetrics, SunBird Bio, and TRex Bio, and as a Board Observer to Capstan Therapeutics and Engine Bio.

Prior to joining Polaris, Alexandra was part of the initial research team at Inzen Therapeutics, where she helped develop their platform technologies. She moved to Inzen from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where she held a research fellowship.

Alexandra received a PhD in Chemical Biology from Harvard University, where she studied natural product discovery. Alexandra performed her undergraduate studies at New York University.

Joy Ho PhD

Currently looking at healthcare investments at EDBI, Joy identifies global investment opportunities across Biotech, Digital Health, and Medtech sectors. Her portfolio includes Aetion, Biofourmis, Engine Biosciences, Doctor Anywhere, Neuroglee, Genesis Medtech, us2.ai, and Foresite, etc.  Prior to the current role, Joy was a venture capitalist at a fund that focuses on investing into early-stage startups, closing deals across deep technology verticals.

Before beginning her investing career, Joy was a lung cancer program manager at Genome Institute of Singapore and prior to that, she was a researcher at Prof Sydney Brenner’s Molecular Engineering Lab. She also did a stint in biopharma manufacturing at Genentech in North America.

She graduated with a DPhil in Clinical Medicine, and Saïd Business School’s Finance Lab from University of Oxford. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Material Science and Engineering from Nanyang Technological University.

Timothy Lu MD PhD

Tim developed key elements of Engine Bio’s technology platforms and has deep expertise in synthetic and systems biology, genetic interactions mapping, and computer science/engineering.

Tim is an Associate Professor leading the Synthetic Biology Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. Tim graduated with his SB and MEng from MIT, and his MD/PhD from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. He is a core member of the MIT Synthetic Biology Center and a co-founder of multiple biotechnology companies innovating new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies for human health, including Sample6, Senti Biosciences, Synlogic, Eligo Biosciences, BiomX, and Engine Biosciences. He currently serves as CEO of Senti Biosciences.

Tim’s research at MIT focuses on engineering platforms for computing and memory in living cells and applying these to create adaptive medicines as next-generation cell and gene therapies for important human diseases. His work also includes developing novel technology platforms to interrogate and correct diseased cell states. He is a recipient of the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award, the Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award, the NIH New Innovator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award, among others.

James Collins PhD

Jim is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science as well as Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. Jim is widely heralded as one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology, which applies engineering principles to the biological sciences in order to program novel gene circuits that can better control cellular behavior. Using this approach, Jim has pioneered innovative ways to detect and treat infections, and to study antibiotic action, bacterial defense mechanisms, and the emergence of resistance.

In addition to his role as a faculty member at MIT, Jim is a Core Faculty member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Jim is a member of all three National Academies, and has been a Rhodes Scholar, a Macarthur Fellow, and a recipient of the NIH Pioneer Award. He is a co-founder of Senti, EnBiotix, Synlogic (NASDAQ: SYBX) and Sherlock Biosciences. Dr. Collins’ patented technologies have been licensed by over 25 biotech, pharma, and medical device companies.

Nicholas Saccomano, PhD

Nicholas A. Saccomano is a biopharmaceutical professional with nearly 35 years of extensive research, development and management experience across multiple therapeutic areas. He most recently worked at Pfizer R&D, Inc. as Chief Science Officer and Site Head at its Boulder facility, where he led a 170-person research and development team that advanced a portfolio of small molecule drug programs from inception to proof-of-concept. Prior to working at Pfizer, Dr. Saccomano served as Chief Science Officer at Array Biopharma Inc., where he was responsible for creating and advancing ten clinical-stage compounds, with seven drug approvals to date. Dr. Saccomano also served as Chief Technology Officer at SomaLogic Inc., where he managed scientific and technical teams in charge of advancing elements of the company’s proteomic platform. He currently serves as a scientific advisor to several innovative companies. Dr. Saccomano received a B.S. from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Columbia University under the direction of Gilbert Stork.

Stephen Harrison PhD

George Trainor PhD

Dr. Trainor brings 30 years of experience in the Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries. He has expertise in overall drug discovery strategy and execution, medicinal chemistry, and the application of transformative technologies. Leading teams of over 100 scientists, he has advanced over 35 drug candidates into clinical development in a diverse spectrum of therapeutic areas including antivirals, cancer, neuroscience, and inflammation. His team provided key discovery support that enabled the successful launch of SustivaTM for HIV disease.

Dr. Trainor is a partner at BioMotiv which he joined after leaving Bristol Myers Squibb Company as Vice President of Oncology and Early Discovery Chemistry. At BMS George was responsible for all aspects of medicinal chemistry for the oncology area as well as hit-to-leads activities in support of all therapeutic areas. Prior to being merged into Bristol Myers Squibb, Dr. Trainor was Executive Director for Medicinal Chemistry at Dupont/Dupont Merck Pharmaceuticals. His key contribution from that period was the discovery and commercial development of fluorescence-tagged chain terminators for use in automated DNA sequencing. This breakthrough technology was subsequently employed in the sequencing of the human genome, and In 2011, Trainor won the American Chemical Society’s Heroes of Chemistry Award for his work on DNA sequencing. Dr. Trainor did his undergraduate work at Stevens Institute of Technology, received his PhD in Organic Chemistry at Harvard University, and was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University.

José Iglesias, M.D.

José Iglesias, M.D., is consultant chief medical officer at HiberCell. He has more than 30 years of experience in oncology. Prior to working with HiberCell, José was vice president and head of translational medicine at Boston Biomedical Inc., where he was responsible for the clinical development of seven early pipeline compounds in immuno-oncology, solid tumor oncology and hematologic malignancies.

Previously, José was chief medical officer at Biothera where he was responsible for the clinical development program of Imprime-PGG. Prior to that, he was the chief medical officer for Bionomics where he was responsible for the clinical development of its oncology pipeline, including antivascular agents, monoclonal antibodies and small molecule kinase inhibitors. Before that, he served as vice president, clinical development, at Celgene Corporation, where he was responsible for the Phase III development of Abraxane in pancreatic cancer, lung cancer and metastatic breast cancer.

José is author or co-author of more than 60 publications in the area of Oncology, with over 6,000 citations. He received his M.D. in oncology and cancer biology from the Universidad de Montevideo, Uruguay.

Martin Kampmann PhD

Martin is a member of Engine Biosciences’s Scientific Advisory Board, with deep experience in functional genomics technology development and applications in cancer and neurodegenerative disease. He is an Associate Professor in the UCSF Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at UCSF. He received his BA and MA in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry) from Cambridge University and his PhD from the Rockefeller University, where he used biophysical approaches to characterize the architecture and dynamics of the nuclear pore complex with Dr. Günter Blobel.

As a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Jonathan Weissman’s group at UCSF, Martin spearheaded the development of a functional genomics platform that makes it possible to robustly identify human genes relevant to a cellular process of interest, and to elucidate cellular pathways and networks using systematic genetic interaction maps. One important application of the screening platform is the identification of genes that control the sensitivity of cells to a given drug. This approach can identify the relevant cellular targets of new compounds, predict drug-resistance mechanisms, and guide the rational development of combination therapies.

Currently, the goal of Martin’s research is to understand how human cells maintain their proteins in a functional and balanced state. The cellular pathways safeguarding proteome function and balance are termed the “proteostasis network.” Martin aims to elucidate how the proteostasis network dynamically adapts to the needs of the cell and how it is challenged and rewired in diseases, especially cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Identification of proteostasis factors that control formation, spread, and clearance of protein aggregates associated with neurodegenerative diseases will shed light on the disease mechanisms and reveal potential therapeutic targets.

Martin has received several highly prestigious awards, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (2015), the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation’s Allen Distinguished Investigator Award (2015), and the NIH Pathway to Independence Award (2014). The Kampmann lab is affiliated with the Innovative Genomics Initiative and the Paul F. Glenn Center for Aging Research at UC Berkeley and UCSF.

Prashant Mali PhD

Prashant is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California San Diego. His research is in the fields of synthetic biology and regenerative medicine, with a long-term focus on developing tools for enabling gene and cell based human therapeutics. In this regard, he has helped pioneer the development of CRISPR-Cas9, a powerful genome editing tool derived from microbial systems, with wide applications in both basic biology and human therapeutics. More recently, he is focused on the development of RNA and protein targeting tools derived from endogenous human systems.

Prashant received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, a doctorate in Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University, and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Genetics at the Harvard Medical School. He has received multiple awards including the Siebel Scholar Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award, the March of Dimes Basil O’Conner Scholar Award, the Kimmel Scholar Award, Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow, and the Young Alumnus Achiever Award from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

Hu Li PhD

Hu is an Associate Professor at the Mayo Clinic. His group is focused on systems pharmacology and individualized systems medicine. Li’s team is active in developing novel network tools and harnessing machine learning methods to study context-dependent activities of regulatory networks at genome-wide scale. The major theme in the research team is to develop novel computational methods that can detect meaningful biological information embedded in the sea of Big Data and uncover novel regulatory mechanisms that explain the properties of biological phenotypes to benefit individualized disease diagnosis, drug discovery, and precision medicine. The developed computational platforms can greatly illuminate the understanding of disease mechanisms underlying drugs’ modes of action, addressing key challenges in Big Data-oriented biomedical complex systems and will ultimately lead to precision medicine for each patient suffering from a devastating disease.
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Hu completed his post-doctoral fellowship in systems biology at the Wyss Institute at Harvard Medical School and received his Ph.D. in computational biology and bioinformatics from the National University of Singapore.